without complexities or pride
by timelordy
Summary: (so close that your hand on my chest is my hand/so close that your eyes close as i fall asleep) (a series of drabbles about one pink and yellow human and one freckle-faced, converse-wearing time lord)
1. you are my electric girl

**you are my electric girl**  
_(standing there with nothing on/she gonna teach me how to swim)_

"Are you coming in or not?" he thinks he hears her say. He can't really tell, because right now his eyes are fixed on the glorious curve of her back, her t-shirt abandoned long ago. This is the place he loves most at the moment, more than the Powell Estate and the console room and the TARDIS pool- he loves this one sun-drenched little cove in Greece, where the houses are whitewashed and the roofs are so blue they scorch your eyes. He is so glad he brought her here.

It doesn't matter when exactly they are, because she's spent so long with him now that time doesn't exist, clocks exist, and sleeping (or not sleeping) happens at odd hours drifting past a glimmering purple star exploding into a thousand tiny sparks (not that they even really notice the star, apart from the way it lights up their flushed faces). They are together and they are _now_, and nothing else could possibly matter.

He tries to remember how to form words before he replies to her. She is no longer Rose Tyler, nineteen years old and beautiful, with curves and a playful seductiveness she hadn't quite mastered yet. She has it down pat now; knows just what strings to pull for a lower price, a prettier trinket, the praise of _bella, linda, beautiful _ringing in her ears, the jealousy that clouds the Doctor's face as men (and women, Rose isn't shy) throughout space and time try her name out on their tongues.

She watches, crossing her arms and trying her best to play it cool as he kicks off his trainers and leaves his brown pinstripes in a pile on the achingly hot sugar sand. The sun is doing its best to dip below the horizon, the sky streaking with orange and pink like a watercolor painting and casting its light over everything, including the giggles of one Rose Tyler as she is heaved into the still-warm water.

When she pulls her head up from the water, her hair pouring waterfalls over her shoulders, she is facing off against her Doctor, lazily splashing droplets that shine like precious jewels in the low-burning light towards him, and laughing. God, does he love her laugh; the way her tongue peeks though her teeth, the way her eyes burn almost orange in the sunset. He wades toward her, waist-deep, and catches her before she can duck back into the looking glass-still water again.

Her breath hitches in her throat and her fingers trace patterns on his chest, her body weighing nothing in his arms. She is a goddess, an eternal being. He can feel the energy from her fingertips, the energy that would've killed her running lightly up the side of his face, and that is very distracting and _what, exactly, was the plan from here?_ Oh, right, it certainly wasn't her lips on his lips and his neck and his lips again and suddenly he can't remember much of anything, much less why one English girl has such an effect on him, even though it's her and it's always been her.

It's so different this time, with the sand creating a little Rose crater underneath her. She doesn't cry out, she isn't scared or weak or apprehensive (though she never has been, not Rose). She only grins, grins at the look on his face, still drunk off her scent and the sun and the salt and the haze of lust hanging in the air and she draws him closer and he really, really isn't doing very well at this being coherent thing, instead mumbling what he hopes are sweet nothings into her hair.

He does a good job keeping up with her, no matter what she decides to do, how she decides to move, and he's almost thankful flopping into the sand next to her, a little bit dazed and lost in paradise. She turns and draws the same patterns once more, the words and letters and phrases he's taught her, a mix-up of circles and lines and her own added English words, repeating the same thing over and over again until she wears grooves in his skin and leaves marks that will last long after she's gone. He can feel the sparks popping and crackling against his skin as she leans in, whispering translations into his ear.

"Forever, forever, forever," and the word echoes on until the sun returns, bringing with it another new adventure (that unfortunately requires clothing and proper manners, but neither one of them forgets Santorini for a long, long time).

Besides, they can always go back and do it all again, if they want to.


	2. reassuring me that i am home again

**reassuring me that i am home again**  
_(and my heart lights up as you take my hand/and we'll jump this cliff and we'll never land)_

"And I fell out of that tree when I was seven, nearly broke my neck, had to wear a cast round my wrist for a month," Rose babbles, continuing her tour of the playground. "That's where my mate Shareen had her first kiss, underneath the slide, and that was where I had mine, right there in the sandbox."

"How romantic," the Doctor teases. He pretends to sulk when Rose insists on coming to visit Jackie. He only started tagging along willingly when she stopped saying "home." The Powell Estate isn't home, not anymore. It's a place to do laundry and have a glass of water and wash alien slime out of canvas trainers before rushing off again. Home is a magnificent blue box full of love and happiness (not that Jackie's flat isn't) and adventures waiting to be had. Earth is all very well and good, but there's so much to see; it's a good thing they've got more time than anyone could want.

"Shush," she says, grasping onto his arm and attempting to lay her head down on his shoulder while walking. He closes his eyes for just long enough to focus on her warmth against his side and the way her hair smells like coconuts and the way her watermelon bubblegum is simultaneously repulsive and a bit sexy all at the same time. She pops a bubble loudly against the roof of her mouth, and he opens his eyes again, making sure not to veer them into the woodchips like last time. Their shoes are still drying in Jackie's window, stained with thick black alien goop that bears an awful resemblance to tar, and he doesn't want a splinter in his foot or Rose's, though they've both had far worse.

"That's where Mickey and I first became friends," she announces, pointing out a bench with her free hand. "He tripped over my shoes and I gave him- well, Mum gave him a plaster."

"You were quite the flirt as a child," he responds, only half-teasing. She's still quite the flirt now, and for every time he loves it, it drives him equally mad.

She laughs, and he loves it, and they walk along, looping around the playground yet again. All the kids are gone at school, and they have the place to themselves. Rose takes the lead and picks her way across the cedar ground to the creaky swings.

He watches her for a few minutes, using her feet to springboard off the ground until she has the momentum to pump her legs, sending her back and forth and back again like a pendulum, which he supposes is the only good purpose of a swing. He could sonic the bolts and send her looping around the upper beam, if he wanted to, but he doesn't. Some things deserve to be left alone. Instead, he takes the swing next to her, catching up to her stride in a matter of seconds.

"One…" she calls, not bothering to turn her head.

"Two…"

"Three!" he cries, and they go sprawling through the air. He manages to turn his head before the impact, to catch a glimpse of her with hair streaming like ribbons and eyes closed, afraid to look even though she's not very far from the ground.

He wonders if this is what she was like as a child, all dreamy and innocent and wanting nothing more than to fly.

Not that she's changed, of course. Taller, maybe, but still the same. It's the look in her eyes that he'll never get sick of. A starry eyed girl, how couldn't he fall in love with her? Or maybe it isn't love, he doesn't know. Maybe it's something stronger; an iron thread instead of the red preferred by lovers.

She sticks her landing, he collapses into a heap with woodchips in his hair. It doesn't take a second before he's reached out and snagged her hand and is dragging her down towards the tilting, spinning earth, dizzy and giddy and full of light.

* * *

AN:  
So I'm writing again. Run far, far away before you get involved. Drabbles make me feel like I suck less than my actual stories. I haven't abandoned them, we're just taking a break. (Cause like, we hadn't seen each other in a month when you said you needed space. What?)  
Enjoy, amigos. I guess you can consider me back.


	3. and we're having the time of our lives

**and we're having the time of our lives**  
_(our senses come alive/the chemistry is building)_  
_(alternate title: intergalactic dance battles and alien jell-o shooters)_

He can't even get the words "Wait, come back" out of his mouth before she disappears into the neon crowd on some foreign planet of bright colors and loud, pounding music. The lights sweep over the sea of flying hair and generally humanoid figures flailing and dancing and drinking from cups full of something an awful lot like brightly colored gelatin. The air is pleasantly warm, surrounded by hundreds of towering skyscrapers. Everyone is glittering and everyone is happy and everyone is extroverted- only an extrovert could be happy and glittering here. The music is familiar enough to be from Rose's present, but the instruments are from a future she won't even live to see.

He pushes the thought from his head as he does the same to the crowd, hunting for her and jostling the dancers. Suddenly, he is being grabbed by two burly alien men and he doesn't seem to be in a good place to protest. The announcer yells something in an exotic accent and the crowd sends up a wild cheer. They form a wide circle, leaving space in the middle to throw two nominees into the middle.

Oh, now she understands why she's being shoved and jostled out of the thick pack of women and into the center. She's been streaked with glowing paint and necklaces and been handed a few too many of those _wicked_ shots, so it's a perfectly rational decision to half-nominate herself for an intergalactic dance battle. Her opponent is tall and lanky, with thin black dreadlocks and unnatural purple-rimmed eyes. She shrugs, not caring that the bottom half of her shirt is missing somehow, and basks in the glow of the spotlights and the alcohol and the cheering.

He sees her. How could he potentially miss her, standing on a platform with video screen all around and absolutely winning? Her opponent barely has a chance to step forward before Rose is flying, twirling and shaking and tumbling across the stage like some kind of gymnast on ecstasy, and he reminds himself to check her for the typical signs of alien drugs from this planet.

They've never had such a landslide victory. The crowds of women and men converge on each other, crashing down on Rose. He's slim enough to slide his way to the middle and wrap his arms around her waist, trying to pull her out. She doesn't know who he is, not from the back, and she keeps dancing, bringing him into her improvised performance. The Doctor does his best to play along, but it's hard with Rose's hips and her exposed stomach and chest on display for him and the rest of the world.

When there's finally a break, an accidental-on-purpose slip of the sonic that blacks out the music long enough to drag Queen Tyler away from her loyal subjects, he can't help but stare. She looks glorious in the most bedraggled way, splattered with thick paint and running mascara and sweaty hair.

She collapses barely ten feet into the TARDIS, curled up on the captain's chair. The Doctor decides to let them drift for a while, at least until Rose wakes up with a killer headache and looking like she fell into a wet canvas.

(He kind of loves pseudo-party-girl-Rose, to tell the truth. And he's wondering why he's never noticed just how _flexible_ she is.)

* * *

AN: This was hysterically fun to write. Also, this is the main reason I shouldn't be allowed to listen to dubstep during Study Hall on the Friday before my Spring Break. Because stuff like this happens.


End file.
